Presidents' libraries are now showpieces

1:40 PM,
May 2, 2013

Written by

USA TODAY

In 1955, Congress passed the Presidential Libraries Act to expedite the "preservation and administration" of documents and other historical materials.

That original purpose seems to have been lost in the subsequent decades. At George W. Bush's $250 million presidential library, which opened last week in Dallas, you can find, among other things, bronze statues of the Bush family's beloved Scottish terriers.

Nor is the archival function easy to spot at Bill Clinton's opulent library in Little Rock, an ultramodern affair that looks like a giant Jetway lunging toward the Arkansas River in ...